“I can’t say that I’ve had many dealings with warriors, sir,” she replied, trying to distract herself with the task at hand. The shirt was finally free of the blood that was busy clotting in places, so she took the edges of it in her hands and swiftly pulled the entire thing over his head.
“Ye should at least ask a man his name ‘afore ye tak’ his shirt off, Sassenach.” He stared into her eyes, seeming to search their depths for something. Whatever it was, it seemed he’d found it, as the smile grew wider and slightly more devilish in its nature.
“Oh, should I? How very remiss of me. Your name, sir?” she arched her eyebrow at him, feeling that if he could play games with her, she could certainly give it her best to play too.
“Kieran, my Lady,” he said, as properly as any Englishman would, causing her to giggle.
“You really don’t need to sound like a prim and proper Englishman, Sir Kieran. I’m quite comfortable knowing you’re a Scotsman; your plaid is a dead giveaway if your accent wasn’t one.” She nodded her head towards the brightly colored plaid Kieran was wearing.
Vivien had to admit to herself that she found it rather attractive. She had heard so many stories back in London about the heathen Scotsmen and their ridiculous plaid. She had heard so much about how garish and unappealing it was to the eye that she was quite surprised at the fact that she liked it. It was different, unique. Each clan had its own colors and designs, something that she had never thought much of until now. They were both a unified people and a differentiated people, simply in the manner of their clothing style.
She wondered why it felt so natural to her to be around Kieran – to be teased mercilessly and yet somehow find it comforting and uplifting, rather than demoralizing and heart-breaking, as it would have been if it were Reginald speaking to her at that moment.
Something about Kieran had her feeling an emotion she had not thought she would ever enjoy again. Happiness. She felt young at heart, it was easy to smile, and she knew that he would pull a laugh out of her if he really tried hard enough. Vivien could not remember the last time she had smiled, let alone laughed. The concept of happiness – even just contentment – had become such a foreign notion to her that she had entirely forgotten it even existed until right then.
“Ye caught me out,” Kieran winked at her again, that roguish smile never leaving his lips.
“Your wound needs a dressing, Sir Kieran.” She turned her face away for a second, hoping she was not blushing right down to her toes again. “It isn’t as deep as it could have been, but I need to staunch the blood flow for now.” Vivien made quick work of ripping a length off the bottom of her dress, using her teeth to start and end the tear.
“Ye didn’ need tae tear yer dress up for me, lassie.” Kieran looked slightly shocked that she had done so.
“It is of no consequence; I have others, and your wound is a much more pressing issue than a strip of my hem. It bothers me none.” She smiled at him, a genuine feeling of happiness and self-worth coursing through her veins. Vivien couldn’t remember the last time she had felt worthy of someone’s attention, let alone a man’s attention.
And here was Kieran, giving her all the attention she could ask for, and then some. Every time he caught her eye, she felt herself flush with heat. A peculiar warmth was blooming low down in her belly, tingling between her legs as their eyes locked. Vivien almost gasped at the potency of the feeling – it made her giddy and lightheaded, yet it felt so pleasant it drove her to distraction. She found herself locked onto Kieran’s eyes, unable to turn away as she drowned in their chestnut depths. She had never seen eyes such a color before – they were more golden than brown, flecked through with lines of amber and topaz, creating a mesmerizing effect.
Vivien’s breathing became labored and shallow as she lost herself to those eyes, wishing she could stare into them for the rest of her life. Kieran’s breathing seemed to match hers, his gaze unwavering.
A rustling in the trees snapped Vivien back to the present, causing her to gasp audibly as they broke eye contact. She burst out laughing at her own body’s lack of self-restraint as she closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of joy blossoming in her chest.
“Wha’ are ye laughing at?” Kieran queried her, causing her to laugh all the more, and he started laughing too. The rustling stopped; it had most likely been a bird or a rabbit moving around the underbrush, Vivien thought wryly to herself.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Vivien said, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes with the back of her hand, “I completely lost all sense of myself there.”
“Aye, you weren’t the only one,” Kieran replied, gently tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.
His touch sent goosebumps flashing across Vivien’s skin, straight to the heat between her legs. She gnawed at her bottom lip, averting her gaze from where it had come to rest at Kieran’s mouth.
She wanted nothing more than to kiss him. She wanted to leave everything in her life behind and completely forget who she was, just to be able to kiss a man she didn’t know. Vivien didn’t know what was happening to her, but she hardly recognized the woman she suddenly felt like being.
“Wha’ were ye doing in these woods on yer own, lass?” Kieran broke the silence first.
Vivien shook her head at herself, returning to bandaging Kieran’s wound as best she could with the little bit of material she had in her hands.
“I wanted to see the countryside. I am new to these parts, and I just can’t believe how beautiful it is here. It’s breathtaking, to be honest.”
“I see somethin’ much more breathtaking than the forest around us,” Kieran murmured.
Vivien let her eyes stray back to his for a second, taking in the softness that had settled into the laugh lines around his eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Kieran was most certainly a hardened warrior; the calluses on his fingers alone were a dead giveaway. But something in him changed when their eyes met – he seemed to radiate a powerful masculinity and virility throughout their exchange. But when he looked at her, something appeared that was much gentler in the undercurrent than any look she had ever received from Reginald. It was confusing to Vivien, who had so little experience with men that she felt completely out of her depth with a man like him. He clearly had no lack of experience to his name, causing her to feel slightly embarrassed at her lack of knowledge and skills in flirting and general conversation skills with the opposite sex.
“Yes, well, you must have hit your head when you fell over then. There’s nothing that compares to the beauty of your country,” Vivien tried to steer the conversation in a different direction altogether.
“Tha’s yer opinion, my lady, bu’ it isnae the truth. No’ from where I’m sitting,” he replied, “Ye say yer new tae my country; how did you get tae be here, in Scotland?”
Vivien found herself backed into a corner; Kieran could not know who she truly was.
As the wife of an English nobleman, she could not risk letting him know who she was. The Scots hated the English – seeing them as nothing less than the oppressors of their people. Several hundred years of ceaseless wars had been fought between their nations, causing a rift between them that ran so deep it was unlikely that it would ever be filled with anything other than hatred and hostility.
